Skilled Barber Quotes

You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced the pleasures of a great shave at a barber. It’s a relaxing, luxurious experience

Barbers, on the other hand, are interesting guys with fascinating stories to tell. And I in turn feel at ease to say what’s on my mind. We converse about politics, cars, sports and family. Guys who are waiting read the newspaper and comment on current events. And everyone is involved: the barbers, the customers getting their haircut and the customers waiting to get their haircut.

All were expecting to die, and every day of their life was a day of suffering and torment. All had witnessed terrible crimes, and the Germans would have spared none of them; the gas chambers awaited them. Most, in fact, were sent to the gas chambers after only a few days of work, and were replaced by people from new contingents. Only a few dozen people lived for weeks and months, rather than for days and hours; these were skilled workers, carpenters and stonemasons, and the bakers, tailors and barbers who ministered to the Germans' everyday needs. These people created an Organizing Committee for an uprising. It was of course, only the already-condemned, only people possessed by an all-consuming hatred and a fierce thirst for revenge, who could have conceived such an insane plan. They did not want to escape until they had destroyed Treblinka. And they destroyed it.

I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s the combination of the smell of hair tonics and the all-man atmosphere. But more so, it’s the awareness of the tradition of barbershops. Barbershops are places of continuity; they don’t change with the shifts in culture. The places and barbers look the same as they did when your dad got his hair cut. It’s a straightforward experience with none of the foo-foo accoutrements of the modern age. There are no waxings, facials, highlights or appointments. Just great haircuts and great conversation. When you walk out of the barbershop with a sharp haircut, you can’t help but feel a little manly swagger creep into your step.

Well I have him in Italian,' said the barber, 'but I don’t understand it.' 'There’s no reason you should,' replied the priest, 'and here we would pardon the captain if he had not brought to Spain and translated it into Castillian, for he took away a good deal of its original value, which is what all who attempt to translate books of poetry into another language will do as well: no matter the care they use and the skill they show, they will never achieve the quality the verses had in their first birth…

And there, until 1884, it was possible to gaze on the remains of a generally neglected monument, so-called Dagobert’s Tower, which included a ninth-century staircase set into the masonry, of which the thirty-foot handrail was fashioned out of the trunk of a gigantic oak tree. Here, according to tradition, lived a barber and a pastry-cook, who in the year 1335 plied their trade next door to each other. The reputation of the pastry-cook, whose products were among the most delicious that could be found, grew day by day. Members of the high-ranking clergy in particular were very fond of the extraordinary meat pies that, on the grounds of keeping to himself the secret of how the meats were seasoned, our man made all on his own, with the sole assistance of an apprentice who was responsible for the pastry. His neighbor the barber had won favor with the public through his honesty, his skilled hairdressing and shaving, and the steam baths he offered. Now, thanks to a dog that insistently scratched at the ground in a certain place, the ghastly origins of the meat used by the pastry-cook became known, for the animal unearthed some human bones! It was established that every Saturday before shutting up shop the barber would offer to shave a foreign student for free. He would put the unsuspecting young man in a tip-back seat and then cut his throat. The victim was immediately rushed down to the cellar, where the pastry-cook took delivery of him, cut him up, and added the requisite seasoning. For which the pies were famed, ‘especially as human flesh is more delicate because of the diet,’ old Dubreuil comments facetiously. The two wretched fellows were burned with their pies, the house was ordered to be demolished, and in its place was built a kind of expiatory pyramid, with the figure of the dog on one of its faces. The pyramid was there until 1861. But this is where the story takes another turn and joins the very best of black comedy. For the considerable number of ecclesiastics who had unwittingly consumed human flesh were not only guilty before God of the very venial sin of greed; they were automatically excommunicated! A grand council was held under the aegis of several bishops and it was decided to send to Avignon, where Pope Clement VI resided, a delegation of prelates with a view to securing the rescindment if not of the Christian interdiction against cannibalism then at least of the torments of hell that faced the inadvertent cannibals. The delegation set off, with a tidy sum of money, bare-footed, bearing candles and singing psalms. But the roads of that time were not very safe and doubtless strewn with temptation. Anyway, the fact is that Clement VI never saw any sign of the penitents, and with good reason.

Would you say that that man is at leisure who arranges with finical care his Corinthian bronzes, that the mania of a few makes costly, and spends the greater part of each day upon rusty bits of copper? Who sits in a public wrestling-place (for, to our shame I we labour with vices that are not even Roman) watching the wrangling of lads? Who sorts out the herds of his pack-mules into pairs of the same age and colour? Who feeds all the newest athletes? Tell me, would you say that those men are at leisure who pass many hours at the barber’s while they are being stripped of whatever grew out the night before? while a solemn debate is held over each separate hair? while either disarranged locks are restored to their place or thinning ones drawn from this side and that toward the forehead? How angry they get if the barber has been a bit too careless, just as if he were shearing a real man! How they flare up if any of their mane is lopped off, if any of it lies out of order, if it does not all fall into its proper ringlets! Who of these would not rather have the state disordered than his hair? Who is not more concerned to have his head trim rather than safe? Who would not rather be well barbered than upright? Would you say that these are at leisure who are occupied with the comb and the mirror? And what of those who are engaged in composing, hearing, and learning songs, while they twist the voice, whose best and simplest movement Nature designed to be straightforward, into the meanderings of some indolent tune, who are always snapping their fingers as they beat time to some song they have in their head, who are overheard humming a tune when they have been summoned to serious, often even melancholy, matters? These have not leisure, but idle occupation. And their banquets, Heaven knows! I cannot reckon among their unoccupied hours, since I see how anxiously they set out their silver plate, how diligently they tie up the tunics of their pretty slave-boys, how breathlessly they watch to see in what style the wild boar issues from the hands of the cook, with what speed at a given signal smooth-faced boys hurry to perform their duties, with what skill the birds are carved into portions all according to rule, how carefully unhappy little lads wipe up the spittle of drunkards. By such means they seek the reputation for elegance and good taste, and to such an extent do their evils follow them into all the privacies of life that they can neither eat nor drink without ostentation. And

Broadly speaking, it seems that teachers help you know and understand and coaches help you practise and get better. Returning to the notion of how we are useful to our students, which do your students need most from you? The following questionnaire can help you think about this further.   Your turn 2 Underlying philosophies Grade each statement from 1 (don’t agree) to 10 (agree completely). Make a note of your answers, if you wish, to discuss with a colleague. a) Learning a language means learning words and rules. b) Learning a language means repeatedly using it. c) People learn best by noticing and working things out. d) They learn best by communicating with other people. e) Mistakes show that students have not understood the grammar properly. f) They show that they have not practised enough. g) Speaking is a conscious, cognitive process. h) Speaking is an automatic habit.   Perhaps all of these statements are true for you. Still, you may have found that you favour some more than others. Notice how a), c), e) and g) promote the idea of language as knowledge to learn, a bit like maths or music theory, whereas b), d), f) and h) reflect the side of learning that involves practising a skill, more like tennis or playing the piano. If you think that the skill side of language learning is particularly important, you will probably feel comfortable thinking of yourself as a language coach, someone whose main job is to get students practising and improving. If you see language as knowledge, the question to ask yourself is how your students can best acquire that knowledge, from you teaching it to them or from other sources of reference and input?